To the Suffering Traditionalist

 My words today are not to those idiots and bad faith actors, nor are they to an increasingly feckless and irrelevant Rome, mad that the world does not operate the way they think it should.  That is the animus and impulse for this morning's Instruction from the Congregation of Divine Worship, which purports to regulate what mass times parishes are allowed to advertise and purports to ban coffee socials after a Latin mass, among other stupidities.  The Tiber will consume these men in their final moments soon enough, and then they will have to stand before God and answer for the cruelty and nastiness even non-trads can see.

Dispensing with them (giving them the amount of thought that we should), what can we do now?  I would like to remind you that your first responsibility is to your baptismal promises, which were between you and Christ, not between you and the Pope.  The gift of salvation in the Catholic Church is not something the pope gives us.  Nor is it something he can take away, even though he clearly wants you to lose faith.  The goal of this instruction is to burn down as much of the Church as he can on the way out, hoping that a few traditionalists are caught in the fire.  We do not need to give that to him.

Write to your bishops and priests.  Say what the Latin Mass means to you, what it means to others, and how it has helped you and your community develop a deep relationship with Christ, and how that enriches the Church as a whole.  Remind them of their sacred duty and obligation to shepherd the flock, and then ask them to shepherd the flock, by not implementing diktats they clearly are under no obligation to implement.  If they are not universal laws, then they are not binding.  If they are such laws, they can still be dispensed with if they would inflict harm, which they clearly would in most places.

The Pope can die a happy man if the Church burns, but traditionalists turn on each other in his final moments.  Do not do that either.  Be united to each other, within the bosom of the Church.  For those who feel the need to attend at the SSPX, it is clear that this is not out of a desire to separate yourself from the Church, and it is increasingly unclear in 2021 the exact way in which they are "separate" anyways.  I would likely not do it, but I have options.  Yet do not make such decisions lightly, and even if you go, go for the right reasons.

Reject all con-artists trying to monetize this anger, and reject the self-loathing trad who says we have brought this upon ourselves.  Sometimes God hardens the hearts of wicked men so that His will may be fulfilled.  He is clearly doing so now.  These wicked men make increasingly irrational and counterproductive moves, even if you favor their cause.  

Be responsible to your own station in life above all else.  Submit to your obligations as a spouse, a parent, a friend, family member, etc.  Let your prayer life be one not of stoic "thank you sir may I have another" but of joyfully suffering for the sake of Christ.  Joyful suffering is a  paradox, but that paradox comes in the joy of being chosen by God, and of seeing the rage and anger in the eyes of wicked men who understand we are chosen and loved by God, though they have rejected and hate us.

Be a part of your parish life, and make sure it is evident how your parish, and the diocese at large is enriched by your actions.  Make clear everyone knows that the Pope wishes to take this enrichment away because you have found Jesus Christ in a way that he cannot understand, and he hates you for that.  The demagogues at Where Peter Is and Rome will never understand that, but the average Catholic will see the injustice of that situation and will be swayed.  As will most Bishops.

Finally, we have served together for two decades.  We will serve together many more.  I am honored by all of your sanctity and heroic Christian witness, and I am honored that your suffering will reach God far better than these words will.  Far from defeat, this will be our defiance:  we will outlast these men in their final hours.  Let their final hours, rather than being of drawing closer to God, be spent fuming over how we have not been broken.  Let them be broken by our refusal to be broken, and pray that God may show them, in their increasingly last moment on the stage, how much they have broken themselves, for and over so little.

Be assured of my prayers, my solidarity, and most importantly, my willingness to talk and help you persevere.  People know my email.  They know I'm on twitter @catholicsmark.  Those DM's are open.

Finally, be yourself, beloved by God.  Let the Pope hate you for being beloved by God all he wants, and let him confront his powerlessness in shaking us from God's status as loved.